Jerusalem, Palestine c.1880’s
The genocide against Palestinians is often framed as having begun in 1947–48 during the Nakba, when Zionist militias forcibly expelled over 750,000 Palestinians, massacred entire villages, and systematically destroyed more than 500 Palestinian communities. Others attempt to situate its origins even later, as an escalation in October 2023, when Israel launched its most devastating military assault on Gaza to date. However, these narratives, while acknowledging crucial moments of mass violence, erase the long history of systematic Zionist efforts to eliminate Palestinians. Framing the genocide as a product of either the Nakba or recent military offensives treats it as episodic rather than as part of a continuous, unfolding project of destruction that began well before 1948.
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